The Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson has restated the Commission’s readiness for the December polls allaying the fears of Ghanaians about the possibility of the elections being postponed.
Charlotte Osei stressed at an Editors Forum in Accra Thursday that there is no cause for concern, stating emphatically that “we are ready.”
The concern of many Ghanaians for some time now has been about the preparedness of the EC to supervise this year’s polls.
The fear of a botched election was heightened following the litany of court cases against the EC which was finally put to rest by the Supreme Court last Monday.
Private legal practitioner Akoto-Ampaw, concerned about the EC’s preparedness penned a letter to the EC boss demanding that she answers some seven questions regarding what plans the EC has put in place to organise the elections.
With the legal hurdle overcome, Mrs. Charlotte Osei has been defending the electoral body’s suit describing it as a strategic one aimed at ensuring that the commission stayed within schedule.
She explained that part of the reasons the Commission had to go to the Supreme Court was to bring a finality to the disputes over the nominations process and to “basically meet the November 7 deadline.”
She said the decision by the EC to go to the Supreme Court was informed by the plan to have an order that will cover all the other suits pending in court and bring finality to the process.
The Commission was expected to have issued a notice of poll for both the parliamentary and presidential elections a month to the December 7 election but delayed as a result of the suits.
The EC chair said as an electoral body mandated by the constitution they are committed fully to “always following the law as we understand it. If the court brings a different appreciation of the law we would obey that.”
Mrs Osei noted the Commission’s lawyers have spent a lot of time in the courts this year with some of the courts upholding their decisions while in others cases “aspects of the ruling have gone against us, we have complied with the court process expeditiously and to the best of our ability.”
After giving three other previously disqualified presidential aspirants the green light to join four others in the race to the Flagstaff House on Wednesday, the presidential balloting has been done as well as the notice of polls issued to show the Commission’s activities is going on as scheduled.
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